Hobknobs

***Helmets Off can be described as an honest attempt at honesty. Although all options are open at the moment of conception, the end result often remains bare. Instruments come in when they are needed, but the songs apparently don’t need that much at all. Every word and every strum sounds like it’s placed in exactly the right moment. Perhaps it is this bareness of the songs, that makes it feel as if The Hobknobs are speaking to the listener directly. It is clear that they don’t want anything to cloud this human interaction.

Yaël Dekker, whom you may also know as the singer of The Klittens, and Arie van Vliet, who used to spread his word through the band Lewsberg, were once described as loving misanthropes. Listening to Helmets Off, this description seems rather accurate. A consoling song like “The Mind” sounds haunting. Even words seem to have lost their meaning in “Dictionary”. Songs that seem cheerful and naive at first appear to be pleadings on second listen. And is “Enarmoured” a pro-war protest song? What war do they want to fight?

Dekker and Van Vliet’s voices seem to know each other well, in a way that magnifies the songs on 'Helmets Off' beyond their deceptive simplicity. Together with the minimal production by Jaap van der Velde, it makes that the album hits the sweet spot somewhere in the middle of ‘instantly familiar’ and ‘no one else sounds quite like this’.